The Lady Flashes earned their first win of the season with a 41-34 win over the West Babylon Eagles at Sayville High School Wednesday afternoon. Senior point guard Marissa Kahane led the Flashes with 16 points.
Sayville was looking to get into the win column for the first time this season after losing their opener 35-34 on Monday at Westhampton, but at the end of the first quarter, Sayville trailed West Babylon 7-6. Senior forward Julia DePompeo scored all of Sayville's points, playing tough inside. She would finish with 12 points and 8 rebounds.
At the start of the second quarter, Kahane hit a three-pointer to spark a 9-0 Sayville run. The Lady Flashes would never look back, extending their lead to 26-12 with a 7-0 run to end the half.
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Savville led by as many as 17 points with Kahane cutting in and out of the Eagle's defense and sophomore guard Amy Dean chipping in 6 points.
"I feel like we got the ball up the court well. I got the ball to the open players. Everyone did what they were supposed to do. We made the easy shots. Everything just fell into place," said Kahane. "In the first game, I wasn't so patient. As a leader, I need to know that when everything is getting frenzied, we have to calm down."
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In the fourth quarter, West Babylon mounted a comeback, going on a 7-0 run over their own. Madison Vasquez led the way for West Babylon with 14 points. The Eagles would outscore Sayville 14-4 in the quarter but the Lady Flashes hung on for the win.
"We played well defensively for three quarters," said Sayville head coach Phil DePompeo. "You tend to slack off a bit in the fourth quarter when you are up by 17. We let them sneak in a little bit and then we got ourselves into foul trouble."
Sayville's play in the first three quarters, forcing West Babylon shots from the outside, and the leadership of Kahane helped propel the team to its first win. "For a second game, it worked out well. We got better from our first loss to Westhampton on Monday," said DePompeo. "We're looking to improve each day and they improved from Monday. Some of the things we didn't do well against West Hampton, we did well today. We boxed out a little bit better. We were smarter with the ball."
The Sayville coach likes the chemistry on the team and hopes it will continue to get better as the season progresses.
"We have a lot of girls left over from last year so we're all friends. We're basically a family," Kahane said.
Sayville Scoring:
Player Points Marissa Kahane 16 Julia DePompeo 12 Amy Dean 6 Kelsey Clair 3 Kathleen Barry 2 Mollie Drinkwater 2
